Did Humans Always Have Skin?

Did Adam and Eve have skin before the fall? I’m not so sure. I was listening to a sermon a while back and the person speaking referenced Genesis 3:21 (“The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.”) While I don’t even remember now what the sermon was about, I know it had nothing to do with skinless humans, but it somehow got me thinking about whether or not humans have always had skin.

Up until then I had never noticed the separation between garments of skin and clothed them. I think that most of us assume that the skin the garments were made from was animal skin, but maybe we are inferring too much. I don’t see anywhere in the text where it says that God made garments from animal skin for them to wear. Rather, it says that He made garments of skin for them AND clothed them. Could the garments of skin and the clothing be two separate things? Is it possible that the skin that God made was given to Adam and Eve to wear over their naked, exposed flesh? And then he also gave them clothes to wear?

I then began to wonder if the text had ever made reference to Adam/Eve’s skin prior to this verse. While there are several references to bones and flesh, there is not one mention of skin. I don’t know about you, but when I hear flesh, I always picture the red “fleshy” stuff under the skin. For instance, when someone has an open wound it is often said that you can see their flesh. What’s the big deal about that if the flesh is the skin?

Maybe once Adam and Eve ate the fruit and became aware of the state of their bodies, it was too disgusting to look at. Maybe God made skin to cover up the exposed flesh and bones so that it would be easier to look at. Can you imagine what it would be like if will were still without skin? So maybe it was very intentional that skin was mentioned in this verse for the first time along with clothes. I wonder if we haven’t just been assuming too much this whole time and reading over this verse without giving it a second thought. Something to think about anyway…